Sabah Time!

Many cultures can be described in terms of a set of identifying features, I'm not necessarily talking about stereotypes per se but, in many ways, good and bad, our characteristics are what makes us what we are.

As a Brit I am only too aware of the British reluctance to engage in small-talk or actually engage the person who lives next door in a conversation. until, that is we have been neighbours for fifteen years and a tree fall knocks over the garden wall. I will make an effort this week to get to know my neighbours (they look nice).

Sabahans are pretty well-known for being ever so slightly late, not just for dinner or work but for contracts, payments and quite often, completing contracts. So when they want it done yesterday, what they mean is, a week next tuesday will be fine.

The Sabah Indoor Climbing Centre is bang on target for the agreed completion date, only the date has now been put back, by four months or more.

What to do la.

Staff will be trained and the centre will be up and running on the 3rd October, of that we are confident so put it in your diaries ladies and gentlemen, there will be a barbeque and much merryness as the future of climbing in Sabah begins to unfold........

Eds Big Pink Cave

The photo is coming I promise, a crap Sony camera is to blame. I am now convinced that they are manufactured to die within a year. Seems like a rubbish policy to me because I will never buy another Sony camera and I will go out of my way to tell everyone I know that they are shite.

Dont lets get distracted from the new cave, its quite a thing to behold I can tell you, you should drop by Likas and take a look. According to Ed it was meant to be purple but I am not sure that a purple cave would have been any better anyway.

Somehow the colour doesn't even diminish its class, what a great piece of wall-making and I for one am looking forward to getting a firm hand-hold in Eds pink cave and cranking on it......

Red Gecko (Blue Monkey)

A huge lurch forward has occurred since I wrote the last installment, my departure on a two-week road-trip seems to have happened during the ideal growth period. Ed and the boys have made monumental leaps.

1 - the lower half of wall 4 is now in place (Eat Blue Llama)

2 - the bouldering arch is almost complete and ready for painting

3 - all the strength tests are completed (thanks to the Climb Asia team, especially Halil).

4 - the Cave subframe is almost complete, cladding begins on monday

Not bad for a ten-day stretch, powered by lemonade I suspect.

As we approach completion we are thinking about the management and staffing of the place when it opens to the great unwashed. Good staff are being sought.

The gear and clothing outlet is to be called Red Gecko with the cafe to possibly be called Blue Monkey, those who inspired this know precisely who they are....

Ed thinks he will take a holiday once the project is complete, considering his job consists of doing all his favourite things at the same time I fail to understand what he could do on holiday that could be better.

A new project looms on the horizon also, one that will require us to purchase a new outboard motor for my boat in order to get to and from the project site (on an island), its expensive but alas, necessary hmmmmm.

Our experience of the the last island project should have taught us that neither Ed nor Naz can be allowed to drive the boat, land lubbers the both of them.

Lemons

....for making lemonade.

If thats what you have, thats what you do, apparently.

Its a commonly held belief that you can do anything if you put your mind to it, I have my doubts that Formula One is going to be prepared to let me have a stab at the world championship next year and however hard I put my mind to it the fact that I am, er, several years older than the current racers and slightly heavier than I should be would probably make me an outside chancer, even if I had the money of Roman Abramovitch or the chap that just bought Man City (theres a wally if ever there was one) I would stake everything I own on not getting a sniff.

On the other hand, if you have lemons you probably stand a good chance of becoming a lemonade maker, maybe more so than a Formula One driver in fact.

My point is that while we are in the throes of building a climbing wall it is still a wonder for us to stand back and admire our work, not in a particularly smug way, more like getting the job done and enjoying the way it looks.

We are climbers and project managers so building a climbing wall is like the lemon man making lemonade, its the natural thing to do and thats why it is a pleasure for us.

These words of wisdom issued forth from Edward today as we were hauling up the third big wall, the arete in fact. At the time they only served to make me thirsty but then these things sometimes take a considerable time for me to process.

As you can see from the photo its pretty nice, the colouring is different from the last one and the piece that fits between them is going to blend the two shades together, we hope.

Four weeks to go, the clock is ticking but the team continues to work hard, eat messy burgers and nurture a wholly unhealthy sense of humour.

Ugly Beautiful

Personally I have the creative abilities of a tennis ball, my three year-old daughter draws better than me.

What you see here is the work of a genius, drawn from memory on a huge canvas Ed has created something rather special. How glad I am that the 'artist' we asked to come to work with us didnt bother to show up. We have saved money and I very much doubt that he could have done anything nearly as good as this.

The main climbing wall is now a production line of engineering, carpentry, surfacing and decoration and what you see here is the first of a series of five walls we are now installing.

The arete is next, a brutally overhanging construction complete with jamming cracks and hand-moulded features, the perfect compliment to this gentle slab, after that the cave..........

Kids stuff

Getting the kids wall up was far less of a faff than assembling the Discovery panels though both jobs are now just about done.

Got to do a bit ot bolt tightening before any of this stuff can be climbed on but with luck we will be putting on holds within a few days.

Torrential rain has been causing some problems for us despite the fact that we have a roof, you see the clever designers thought that the walls should only be half height, meaning that any rain accompanied by so much as a light breeze gets blown into the climbing centre. Its a shambles.

So our lovely new centre is soon to have huge plastic sheets nailed up against its side. Maybe if it looks dreadful they will be shamed into fixing it before the VIP comes to open it.

The good thing about the rain is that it has provided the equivalent of a car skating rink outside the climbing centre for the appreciation of myself and Ed, got to watch out for the huge holes they keep digging though, that pesky skate park is needing a lot of work... (John the Texas Ranger can often be seen walking around, shaking his head and mumbling about Bali).

Watch this space for pictures of cars in ditches, construction glitches and Naz in stitches....

Walls within walls

It turns out that the Discovery (tm or whatever) wall panels take a little jiggery-pokery to get lined up, "You're going to need a bigger hammer" said Halil, our Singapore supplier (Climb Asia, Cool from the gang!), he was right.

It is starting to look pretty good though and drawing a bit more interest as a result.

The kids wall and the beginners slab are almost finished now, trouble is they are lying on the floor and weigh a bloody ton. Ed has been training at the gym and promises to show us the benefits by lifting the wall into place, personally I favour the chain-block approach but whatever way we do it, there will be difficulties. With any luck I will get some photos and put them on the blog. I have visions of a Laurel and Hardy comedy scene..... "Well Ed, thats another fine mess you've gotten us into"

The discussion on design and art continue, the Logo is going to be decided on in the next couple of weeks and we can then get the PR stuff properly under way. I think we can unveil the logo on the blog first. (is anybody reading this thing?)